Better Days Than These
by pixileanin
Summary: Peony Parkinson is out to prove that even in the darkest of days, the world is full of happy, fluffy goodness.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE:

_A/N: I have to give a lot of credit to my beta team: WriteYourHeartOut, Inkfire and ladybirdflying__. Thank you for your keen eyes and encouraging words!__This was written for __Cassius Alcinder's "Mary Sue Challenge". Enjoy, if you can._

* * *

_._

_._

.

.

Downtrodden students kept their heads low and filed into the Great Hall for breakfast. Albus Dumbledore was dead and Lord Voldemort's minions had begun their reign of terror at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but hope still shone in the eyes of one lovely young lady as she stood before her classmates and gazed around the room. The world was full of happy, fluffy goodness, even in the darkest of days, and she was going to prove it.

Ever since she was a little girl, she'd looked forward to the challenges this year would bring and, aside from a few unexpected changes, it was just as she'd always dreamed it would be. As she sat down at the Slytherin table and tucked in to a glorious breakfast of blueberry scones and caviar-encrusted bacon, the words of her first-year introductory essay flitted through her mind:

_My name is Paloma Papillon Pe'onia Parkinson. I know that's pretty hard for people to pronounce, so you can call me Peony for short. These are going to be the best years ever, I just know it. But I might not need all seven, since I'll be studying really hard._

As she bit into a scone, she felt a twinge of indulgence. That essay had been written ages ago, but it still flitted through her mind at the start of every school year. But even on the third Thursday of October, the tingle of excitement simply hadn't worn off. Peony's favorite house elf, Squiggles, popped in at her side and placed a hand-embroidered napkin across her perfectly creased skirt pleats.

Her sixth-year Prefect pin was polished to a brilliant shine and her hair hung in long blonde ringlets to her shoulders, tamed with a jeweled hair clip. Under her pristine school robe and tastefully modest uniform, the weight of her mother's locket pressed against her alabaster breast, alongside the Time-Turner, a borrowed gift from the Headmaster himself. As the school rules stated, proper attire was the key to good behavior. She needed only look as far as her sister Pansy to see the truth in that. Although in her sister's defense, Pansy was allergic to silk, the poor dear.

A flurry of heavily laden owls filled the air above them, and a large bird with an impressive wing span and an even more impressive amount of flight control swooped down to land delicately between the scones and bacon. Her messenger eagle, Ultimus Prime, set down a huge bag of sweets that the rest of the Slytherin table gleefully snatched up.

"It's like Christmas every day!" exclaimed Astoria, who beamed at Peony with adoration.

Everyone loved Ultimus and his gifts. Everyone loved Peony too, except for her sister. Well, actually Pansy Parkinson was a practiced pain in her nonexistent pimple and technically only her half-sister. And that was alright because the Slytherin rules stated very specifically that everyone in their house must maintain (and exploit, whenever possible) unresolved family issues. It was the one rule that her sister Pansy embraced with every fiber of her being.

_My stepmother (of questionable heritage) held me back a year so my sister could enter Hogwarts first. But I am proud to be here now, and doubly proud to be in the House of Salazar Slytherin, the greatest man ever to live._

Peony's morning had already been eventful, having double-ironed her socks and written off a quick letter to her long-distance beau, Roderick ("I miss you sooo much! *hearts and air-kisses included* Please write back soon"). She tucked the precious letter between Ultimus' impressive talons and cooed at him in delight as he presented her with a large crate containing her prized finch collection. She thanked the eagle with a nice piece of fish and made kissy noises to each of her brightly colored finches. The little birds peeped a merry accompaniment to the long parade of somber instructors making their way to the Head Table, eyes forward and arms stiffly at their sides under the watchful eye of the Headmaster. Peony loved following the rules, and there were more rules than ever now that Severus Snape was in charge.

"Hello, Professor Carrow!" called Peony, waving enthusiastically from her seat as the professor and her brother passed by. They were new to the faculty this year, and Peony wanted to make a good impression.

"Psst! Miss Peony!" whispered Squiggles. "I don't think you should be talking with them."

Peony frowned. "Why not?" she asked. "They are professors, and professors would never do anything to hurt me." She had been to two Prefect meetings so far, and though the Carrows sneered a lot, Headmaster Snape had never taken kindly to nonsense. She told Squiggles all of that.

"No, Miss Peony, they are very, very bad!"

Peony patted Squiggles on the head. "If you follow the rules, everything will be fine." The terrified look on Squiggles' face made her add, "Perhaps I can put in a word with the Headmaster for you."

Squiggles opened her mouth to reply, but then the Headmaster cleared his throat to begin the morning "motivational announcements". The little elf bowed her head and popped away. Peony wondered what that was all about, but before she could dwell on it too much, the announcements were over and she was swept away with the crowd to her classes.

.

* * *

.

Later that afternoon, Peony looked both ways and twice behind her. She backed into an empty alcove and pulled out a long chain from under her uniform. ("Safety first when using unauthorized magical devices," Headmaster Snape had told her.) Because she was brilliant and extremely driven, the Time Turner allowed her to relive each day and attend both sixth and seventh year classes, so she could graduate early and be reunited with her beloved Roderick.

It was true that she and Roderick had had a beautiful summer romance. But he had graduated last year, so she would have to be strong on her own. He'd wait for her, she knew for certain. And when he finally had the time, she knew he'd answer all of the letters she'd been sending to him.

Peony spun the little hourglass and counted the rotations carefully. To an ordinary girl, juggling two years of academics, along with her Prefect duties and countless extracurricular activities, was near impossible, but her loyal friend Squiggles kept her quills sharp and cleaned her ink blotter twice an hour. She even helped Peony relax every evening with tea cakes and peach marmalade.

Just the thought of tea cakes made her tingle with contentment. It was like being wrapped up in a hand-knitted chenille blanket… like eating sugar quills with Roderick… Peony halted her thoughts right there. There would be plenty of time for daydreaming after her assignments were finished.

After classes and homework (and a short meeting with the Headmaster about Squiggles' concerns), Peony surrounded herself with little containers of the shiniest beads she'd ever seen. She couldn't wait to make lovely patterns with them on her pre-cut, pre-knotted perfectly-measured lengths of string. Astoriaand her older sister, Daphne, plopped down on the settee to help.

_One of the best things about being in Slytherin is living in the dungeons. The Common Room is incredibly cold, but I'm getting accustomed to it. And all the green and silver is so pretty. It sets off my eyes._

"Oh, Peony," Daphne exclaimed, "that emerald-green finch on your shoulder goes so well with the upholstery!" Peony nodded in appreciation. She'd been told that emerald green was one of her best colors. She handed a small box of jeweled beads toAstoriawhile the girl chatted away about a boy named Colin who had caught her attention.

"He's so incredibly handsome, and smart!"Astoriabeamed, while attaching the beads to each other in long loops. Peony tried to smile politely asAstoriawent on, but she couldn't help thinking of Roderick and how much she missed him. It must have shown on her face, becauseAstorialet out a small gasp.

"I'm so sorry Peony. I forgot that your boyfriend isn't here this year." She dug around in her bag. "Maybe a sugar quill will cheer you up?"

"No thank you,Astoria. I could never have a sugar quill without Roderick." She chased away a pang of sadness and fastened the end of her own string of shiny beads. "Besides," she toldAstoriaas she reached for another string, "Squiggles is bringing me tea cakes soon. They always make me feel better."

"Tea cakes!" Pansy spat at her from behind. "Who needs tea cakes when everything I have is right here?" she taunted, draping her arms shamelessly all over Draco Malfoy, having dragged him over from the boys' lounge to the settee for the effect of possessing something that her sister didn't.

"Leave her alone, Pansy," Astoria cut in. "You're being mean."

"Why yes, I am." Pansy smiled cunningly. "Miss Perfect Prefect isn't as perfect as you think! I bet you don't know the real reason behind the color of Peony's finches, do you?"

Peony straightened in her chair and Astoria gasped. "Her finches are beautiful, just like her!"

Pansy cackled and Peony glared at her. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, I would," Pansy taunted gleefully. Draco yawned with boredom at her side, probably expecting another weak attack on Peony's impeccable character. "It's because of her underwear!" Pansy announced triumphantly and the entire Common Room gasped.

"Yes, yes!" Pansy went on, now drawing a crowd. "You see, this green finch doesn't only set off her eyes and the upholstery. She matches her finches to her ridiculous underwear, all lace and ribbon and frilly nonsense!"

Astoriacouldn't help herself. "What does it look like?" Peony cringed a little. She'd always been so discreet in the dormitory.

"Well," Pansy continued at Peony's reddening face, "The bottom half is a strappy emerald green, made of the finest silk, with jeweled trim and tiny little bows that tie it all together." Draco leaned in, suddenly more awake than before.

"And the top wraps her up in a lacy corset. With tassels!" she said triumphantly. Peony's bird ruffled its feathers in protest as the crowd whispered around them, probably wondering if it was proper to back up a girl who was intimately familiar with her sister's underthings. Even Draco shifted his feet uncomfortably and extracted himself from Pansy.

"Where are you going, Draco?" Pansy whined, his absence taking away from her moment of glory.

"I have to go, err…" his eyes were a little glazed over, like he might be catching something. "Quidditch practice tonight." He backed up to the boys' hallway. "Gotta polish my broomstick." Then he turned and hurried through the door without another glance.

With whispers still swirling around the room, Peony stood up and faced her sister.

Pansy smirked. "You've got nothing on me, half-sister!"

"Your mother is a hag!" Peony announced to the gasping crowd. She usually didn't throw around unproven rumors, but in her sister's case, she didn't care. "And you still believe that Gilderoy Lockhart's books are autobiographical." That one was entirely accurate.

At that, the Common Room erupted into laughter and a defeated Pansy opened her mouth to retort, but no one could hear her over the jeers. When someone threw a day old biscuit at her head, she gave up and stormed out into the hall.

Peony recalled the final words of her first-year essay and smiled. She was well on her way to being Slytherin of the year!

_…and that is why I will make the perfect Slytherin. You'll see. When I'm old enough, I'll be a Prefect, I'll save the world, and I'll marry the man of my dreams. We will all be such very good friends, I just know it!_

.

* * *

.

In the cool, quiet of the night, Prefect Peony made her rounds through the deserted halls of the school, a little periwinkle blue finch trilling along on her shoulder. Most of the students were put off by the chilled air that seeped into their bones at night from the Dementors patrolling the grounds, sometimes coming far too close to the dormitories and waking the first years with their haunting non-faces peeking through the windows. A scream pierced the stillness and Peony stumbled a little. Oops, she thought. Better report that loose cobblestone.

She was still troubled by Pansy's rude announcement in the Slytherin Common Room earlier that evening. The girl constantly tried to make trouble for Peony. She'd even convinced everyone in Slytherin (with the exception ofAstoriaand Daphne) that Peony's community service project wasn't worth their time or effort.

Peony couldn't understand why. Everyone else had gladly helped out. The Hufflepuffs had donated single servings of double-chocolate brownies and the Gryffindors had given her a box of warm, fuzzy stockings. With the Ravenclaw's motivational haikus and the glittery key-chains she and her friends had made, they were going to deliver the best Azkaban prisoner care packages ever, no matter what!

"It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks," she said aloud. Her favorite underwear set, though it was a bit unconventional, gave her a lovely silhouette under her robe, enhanced her posture and made her feel beautiful on the inside, where it counted the most. Perhaps the tassels might have been a little tacky, but a girl like her couldn't be judged on her attraction to bling.

A rumbling from her stomach reminded her that Squiggles hadn't come with the tea cakes. Friends checked up on friends, she thought to herself. Making a detour from Prefect rounds, Peony turned the corner away from the Main Hall and stopped short in front of a dimly-lit painting. She put her finger to her lips and considered the bowl of fruit in the picture. Either it had changed since the time she'd hand delivered Squiggles' birthday present last year, or the Dementors had managed to suck the color out of the paintings as well. Her hand moved to the yellowing pear. That had to be the right one. She brushed her fingers gently over the fruit, giving it the slightest touch. Then she said the magic words, barely above a whisper:

"Gootchie gootchie goo!"

The pear shimmered and the painting swung away from the wall, revealing an unlit corridor. Peony raised her wand and whispered "Lumos". Stepping lightly down the corridor, she finally reached the hidden kitchen.

"Squiggles?" Peony called out.

"There be no Squiggles here," said a small voice below her. Peony looked down to see Winky the house elf. Her little pointed ears drooped down below her chin, and her wide eyes blinked up at her with such sadness that it took Peony's breath away. Sitting by the fireplace was a case of empty Butterbeer bottles. Winky's eyes stared vacantly into the distance.

"Oh no," she said. "What's happened to Squiggles?"

The little elf shook her head sadly. "She is gone."

"What?" Peony exclaimed in alarm.

How could this be? Squiggles had been the sweetest, most helpful elf ever! A lump formed in the pit of her stomach. "Did she get into trouble?"

"Worse than trouble." The little elf began to tremble, her voice barely as tall as Peony's knees. Tiny hands clutched at Peony's robe and a little bony finger shook as it pointed to a clear puddle in the far corner of the room, over by the pantry.

"An accident? Did she slip and fall?" Peony tried to figure out why all the elves had left the puddle of water on the floor in the first place.

"Much, much worse." The little elf sobbed into Peony's robe, and as she stood, her inner Prefect screaming at the blatant safety violation of the puddle, yellow magical lines appeared, shimmering above the floor, in the shape of a fallen elf. A half-eaten tea cake lay on the floor nearby, little red droplets of jam running off the plate and onto the floor. Peony realized with horror that Squiggles must have been right about trouble at Hogwarts. She shook her head, trying to clear it, but the sight stayed in front of her.

"D-dead?" Peony choked out. The finch on her shoulder made a strangled peep and hid its tiny head in her platinum curls.

Winky was openly sobbing. The elf took a deep breath and let out a wail.

"She's been murdered!"

.

.

.


	2. Chapter 2

.

.

.

.

Junior Lead Detective In Training, Terrence Spungen, had been woken from a peaceful sleep and had a portkey and a short file folder shoved at him at a quarter to eleven in the evening. He arrived slightly disoriented outside the Headmaster's Office at shortly after midnight, and attempted to gather his wits about him before meeting his first real client. As he reviewed the file on the house elf death, a gruff voice called from within.

"Sit."

Terrence stepped into the Headmaster's office and sat down, hiding a nervous yawn behind his hand. He'd never done field work before, but he'd memorized his father's declassified files (and everything else he could get his hands on). Fortunately, the Headmaster's long scowl didn't look up from his sheaves of parchment as he addressed the detective.

"I wouldn't ordinarily bother the Ministry for inconsequential matters. However, with recent reports of dissidence and due to the sensitive nature of this year's curriculum reorganization…" The Headmaster paused for effect. "We cannot discount any anomaly."

The detective nodded. "Certainly."

"The serving staff was rightly put out by the elf's demise. If the matter isn't treated with sensitivity, things could go awry. Garbage cannot simply pile up and Hagrid's low blood sugar will not allow him to miss a meal. The excessive lip twitching of the staff alone would cause my eyes to roll in the back of my head, and I need them to stay where they are." The Headmaster's own lip began to twitch and he sniffed abruptly. "And also, there are students here," he added dismissively.

Terrence shuffled through his copious notes for something, anything that might be helpful. His father's questionable discharge from the British Ministry had made many of his colleagues reluctant to look on the Spungen name as anything but a synonym for failure. Handling a simple house elf issue would be a good start in proving them all wrong… though he couldn't deny his father's warning that these days, uncovering the truth was a dangerous business.

"There is a student in Slytherin who might be able to help you," the Headmaster finally offered when Terrence hadn't been helped by his notes. "One of the Parkinson sisters seems to have made a friend with it last year."

Terrence wrote the name down in his notes. "Where can I find her?"

The Headmaster put his papers down and stared at Terrence. "It should be rather obvious to you, Detective. Go out and detect her." Then he added, "She's the clever one with the annoying bird."

Terrence expected the Headmaster to finish with "that will be all", but after an awkward silence with the Headmaster's head buried into his scrollwork, the detective saw himself out. He'd never been to Hogwarts (having spent his school years studying inItaly), but he was fairly certain that the kitchen would be easy enough to find. In his experience, they were generally two flights down and to the left of the Main Office. (At least they had been at his old school, and the Pantheon Bowling Alley in lowerRome, which didn't have stairs, but followed the same principle.) How different could British architecture be? Unfortunately, he had no experience in appeasing house elves, although it couldn't be nearly as difficult as negotiating a truce during the Goblin Rebellion of sixteen twelve (which he'd studied on his off time and found particularly fascinating). As he stepped onto the moving staircase, Terrence dug around in his notes from his detective-in-training workshops. Maybe he had a checklist for disgruntled house elves.

Terrence took the nearest left turn and stopped at the sight of two girls arguing, their shrill voices bouncing off the stone walls into the silent night.

"You called my mother a hag! After everything she's done for you!" The ebony haired girl's face was red like a beet.

The blonde with the ringlets was stunning, even when slightly flushed. "You exposed my underthings in public!"

Terrence's eyebrows went up and he concentrated on absolutely not envisioning the fair-haired girl in anything less than her school uniform.

"How are you going to get by now, without your little helper, Miss Perfect?" The ebony-haired girl scrunched her face up. "I heard what she said yesterday. The Carrows probably used her for Dark Arts target practice!"

"Squiggles didn't do anything wrong, and my corset is nobody's business. You shouldn't have opened your mouth!"

Pansy exploded. "You shouldn't have been born!"

"Excuse me?" Terrence ventured. The argument was clearly getting out of hand and he had someplace to be. "Do either of you know the Parkinsons?"

Pansy shrieked in disgust at the interruption and stormed off. Peony turned to him in surprise. "So you heard all of that? Now everyone knows. Just to be clear, I'm rethinking the tassels."

"It's half past midnight, the two of you were very loud and… what?" Terrence hadn't heard anything about tassels.

"That was Pansy, my ill-tempered sister. My name is Pe'onia Parkinson, but you can call me Peony. What can I do for you?"

"Well," Terrence began, studying her in the dim corridor and noting her confidence and poise (and the finch, which matched the description that he'd been given). "Headmaster Snape said you might be helpful." He pulled out a clean sheet of parchment and wrote "Parkinson" at the top. A girl like that deserved her own page. "So you and your, err, sister is it?" Terrence couldn't believe they were that closely related. If he squinted, their facial features might be similar, except the blonde had an elegant, smoothness and the brunette who'd run off looked like she'd been smacked with the wrong end of a broom.

"Half sister, thank goodness," Peony told him. "She thinks her mother deserved Father more, but the truth is that he married my mother first. She died when I was three, unfortunately. And then Father married her mother because it was the right thing to do. He was a very honorable man, and then he died too…" She trailed off, seemingly in a world of her own.

Terrence's quill hovered over his notebook. The girl had such a sad look in her eyes that he couldn't help but throw in an "I'm sure your mother was a lovely person, just like you." Gah! She was so… pretty. 'Talking to pretty girls' was not on the checklist, unless they were suspects. He cleared his throat and tried to sound professional. "You must be the one who found the house elf."

Peony nodded. "Water was all over the floor, and poor Winky sobbed into my robe!"

"Did you know the deceased very well?"

She sniffed. "Yes. My sister said she smelled like eggplant, but I happen to like eggplant very much. Squiggles didn't deserve to die." Her bottom lip quivered.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Terrence said. "I was wondering…" He scanned down the Junior Detective Checklist, but she seemed so upset. Maybe he could soften the blow… sit down with her later, over a cup of tea and cookies… no, Terrence corrected himself. The Checklist was clear. He put on his most convincing smile. "Could you show me where the kitchens are?"

Peony's face turned a rosy pink and she smoothed her hair, putting a few curls back in place. "Of course."

.

* * *

.

The next morning, sunlight poured into the Great Hall, casting its brilliance on the four houses of Hogwarts, but Peony's heart was darkened by sadness and longing. Last night, she'd shown the nice detective to the kitchens and then couldn't get to sleep, disturbed by Squiggles' untimely death. She was still uncharacteristically gloomy that afternoon when she returned to the empty Great Hall and spun her Time-Turner back to attend the rest of her classes for the day. (Even though everyone knew about Peony's impossible schedule, the Headmaster had sworn her to secrecy, or he would have forms to fill out and questions to answer and no one had time for that.) Peony closed her eyes and breathed slowly, trying to clear her head. She needed a glass of water with a lemon spritzer on the side. A dose of headache potion might make the day look brighter too. She almost called out Squiggles' name, but stopped herself. Poor, poor, dead Squiggles. Peony suppressed a sob and stepped out of the Great Hall, getting swept away by the oncoming crowd of students heading to Muggle Studies.

"Alright class," the Professor said as she took her seat at the front of the room. She tapped her wand on the display board. "Let's pick up where we left off on the chart of Muggle-born hierarchy."

Peony's quill scratched away as the professor described the finer points of how Muggle blood affected a Wizard's status in the new regime.

"One eighth Muggle on your grandparent's side grants you privileges at Gringotts to rent a vault, but not in the restricted section." Carrow drawled on and Peony scribbled. "One sixteenth Muggle grants access to St. Mungo's express care services without the three-day waiting period. These _persons_," she said as if they weren't persons at all, "are also granted double rations."

Angry murmurs rose from the Gryffindors in the room. Alecto tapped her wand on the desk in an impatient rhythm and the room fell back into silence, save the scribbling of quills and a few snickers from the Slytherins in the back.

Most of the seventh-years, particularly the Slytherins, were aware of their heritage. Still, Professor Carrow encouraged them to dig as deeply as they could to find the smallest hint of Muggle ancestry. Peony was paired off with Luna Lovegood and her sister had gotten Neville Longbottom. Pansy spent most of the class primping in her mirror while Neville did all the work, but he didn't seem to mind.

"That's right, Pansy Parkinson," Pansy said to her hand mirror, gazing lovingly at her own reflection. "No one has a bloodline as good as you."

Peony was in awe of Luna, particularly since she had managed to skip a year ahead in Muggle Studies and ended up in the seventh year class with Peony. The Lovegood line was difficult to trace further back than six generations, but Peony had found no Muggle blood anywhere. Likewise, Luna had found no impurities with the Parkinsons on her father's side. It was a good thing that Luna was a Ravenclaw, because she had to trace Peony's mother's line carefully, being solid-sure that everything was correct. Peony leaned in to watch her, further impressed with Luna's thorough research.

At the end of the hour, Luna announced to the class that Peony's birth mother was a direct descendant of Bridget Wenlock and, not only that, but she was the seventh generation of Wenlock's seventh son. Peony was pleased as pumpkin juice and the class let out impressed murmurs all around her.

"I knew it!" Draco whispered to Crabbe next to him. " See how her eyes are two-tone, hazel with the green on the outside and brown towards the center? Clear sign of ancient power."

Crabbe snickered. "Sure is more attractive than Goyle's sixth toe!"

Pansy, on the other hand, was horrified when Neville uncovered her mother's great-great Aunt as the infamous hag, Malodora Grymm.

Peony almost smiled that day as Pansy's mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish and the boys all around her made rude noises. Luna leaned over to Peony and whispered, "I imagine that explains her fascination with the mirror."

Professor Carrow rapped her wand on the desk and launched into another lecture on "One sixty-fourth Muggle restrictions". Right about the moment that Peony's quill hand started to cramp up, the professor stopped and asked for questions.

Neville Longbottom's hand shot up. "Professor Carrow," he said. "I'm having trouble with my ninth generation chart. There's no Muggle blood anywhere. Maybe you could give us an example and show us how much Muggle blood is in your blood line."

Peony looked up, hoping to see an educational demonstration. "Good question, Neville," she had expected. "I'm point seven percent Muggle, twelve generations back, so I fall on the chart right about here," or something of that nature.

Instead, she was shocked by the stone cold rage in Alecto's eyes as Neville was wordlessly dragged into the next room by his shirt collar. Peony caught snatches of the commotion in the next room. "How dare you! You will pay for that insolent outburst!" There was a flash of red from the window. Peony and her classmates wordlessly gathered their things and hurried on to their next class.

Later in the Common Room when she was trying to explain the finer points of Charms work toAstoria, she overheard the other Slytherins laughing and saying that Neville was as good as dead.

"Even his pure blood won't save him now!" cackled Pansy to her friends.

Peony put her head deeper into her textbook. She was starting to feel uncomfortable about the new rules and how a student could be punished for not even breaking them. Did the Dark Lord allow people to break his rules at their convenience? Peony shuffled through her copious notes, reading and rereading them from start to finish. Was there an addendum that she wasn't aware of?

A noise by the Common Room door caught her attention and she looked up in time to catch sight of a boy disappearing into the hall. It looked like Roderick! Peony leapt from the table, ignoring the call ofAstoriaand ran right out of the Slytherin Common Room.

"Roderick!"

He turned slightly and Peony rushed to catch up, hoping that he'd offer comfort and reassurance after the horrible things that she'd been through in the last twenty-four hours. He'd obviously seen her – his eyes nearly bugged right out of his head, he looked so excited!

There! He must have ducked around that pillar. Peony's spirits soared as she hurried onward. Roderick would tell her that everything was going to be alright. And maybe he'd hold her hand again. She rounded the corner and stopped short in the spot she had seen him but the only other person there was Peeves' ghost who floated above her and cackled at her confusion.

Roderick was gone.

.

* * *

.

Peony's elation had been short-lived. She dragged her feet through Prefect rounds that evening. Even her little finch couldn't put a smile on her face. Squiggles was dead and Roderick had disappeared. It was hauntingly familiar somehow, the loss and abandonment she felt. She was following the faint sound of voices that were out after curfew and needed to be punished. Peony would feel so much better once the perpetrators were set straight. They might even thank her later for making them realize how important it was to follow the rules. Peony rounded the corner with purpose in her stride and almost rammed straight into Draco Malfoy.

She took a stumble backwards. "Oh my," she said awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you," he said. "Prefect rounds. We're paired up, remember?"

"No, I…" Peony was taken by the arm and swept down the hall, apparently now on patrol with the Head Boy. She thought back to the whirlwind of Prefect meetings and was positive that she'd have remembered being paired off with Draco Malfoy. But with her double load of classes, perhaps it was possible that she could have missed a detail or two.

Draco dropped Peony's arm at the double doors to the West Wing and made a big show of holding them open for her.

"Umm, thank you?" Peony would expect that kind of gesture from Roderick because he loved her, not from someone like Draco Malfoy, who was rumored to do everything with girls except hold doors open for them. She wanted to remind him that she was already spoken for and also that he should be doing chivalrous things for her sister, the girl he'd supposedly been dating for the last year or so (off and on, she had lost track). She and Pansy barely got along, but she was clear on the rule against poaching boyfriends. Not that she would ever be interested in Draco Malfoy.

Their footsteps echoed in the deserted hall as she thought of an appropriate way to phrase her question. "Do you remember Roderick Spinks? My _boyfriend_?" she ventured.

"Yes." Draco smiled knowingly at her.

Peony swallowed uncomfortably. That was a silly question. Of course Draco knew who Roderick was. They had been on the same Quidditch team all last year.

"I'm sure he's been really busy this year, doing things that older boys do when they leave Hogwarts. I hope I get to see him soon, because I miss him very much."

She stopped herself from continuing on. It was one thing to babble on about Roderick with Daphne andAstoria, but this was Draco Malfoy. He wasn't going to squeal delightedly about her long-distance beau with her, no matter how great Roderick was. So far, he hadn't said much at all. His silence was making her insides jittery.

Maybe this was what Draco Malfoy was like with everyone. Maybe he was completely unaware of how his sideways glances were making her nervous. The silence was making her nervous. Being in this hall with him… she was a nervous wreck. Nervous warmth spread behind her ears and she wished for anything to break the thick layer of nervousness that had built up around them.

Finally, he spoke. "Lovely finch."

"Thank you," Peony said, still unnerved, but quite flattered at the same time, which was even more confusing. Draco didn't sound like he was making fun of her. And most boys didn't normally comment on her birds. They mostly talked about Quidditch and… err… more Quidditch…

Her internal monologue was interrupted by the voice of Luna Lovegood drifting from up ahead. "What are you doing? The Carrows have been waiting for an excuse to take out a couple of Gryffindors. Now get back to bed... quickly. Before they catch you!"

Peony and Draco approached the small group of students. Luna, her Prefect badge shining in the torchlight, seemed to have taken control of the two boys. Next to her, Ginny Weasley was trying to blend into the stonework.

"What's she doing here?" Draco pointed an accusing finger at Ginny. "She's not a Prefect."

"She's with me," Luna told him. "Prefect-in-training," she added with an unusual air of authority. "Professor Flitwick told us to give it a go before he brought it up at the next meeting." Luna dug around in her pocket, whispered to a broken quill and tucked it behind Ginny's ear. "There. Now she's labeled."

They all stared at the glittering words, "Prefect In Training" above Ginny's head for a long, silent moment. Peony thought this was a brilliant idea.

"Are… you going to turn us in?" one of the boys asked.

Ordinarily, Peony would give the boys a well-deserved detention, but the rules weren't clear on who was in charge if more than one Prefect arrived on the scene. Draco had started picking at his well-manicured cuticles out of boredom and didn't seem concerned at the oddity of the situation. "Luna found you first." It was only fair, Peony decided. "She gets to decide what to do."

"This is your only warning," Luna said to the boys, and quickly glanced at Draco, who merely shrugged. "Get back to your Common Room!"

"We will!" The boys bobbed their heads up and down. One of them looked straight at Peony. "We promise. We won't do it again!"

"You did a kind thing," Luna told her after the culprits scampered away. "I suppose we'll be on our way." She took Ginny with her back down the hall.

Draco made one of his I'm-in-charge faces and said, "It wasn't what I would have done. If something bad happens, I won't be taking the blame for it. There were witnesses."

"Hmm…" Peony considered. Being Head Boy came with an immense amount of pressure. She was sure he meant that it was nice to have other people to share the responsibility.

They were well into their second patrol of the same hallway when they spotted the fresh graffiti on the wall. Peony was so put out by the blatant disregard for school property that she almost missed Draco's blanched face. He rubbed at his arm. "I have to go," he told her.

Those doors had looked awfully heavy, Peony remembered. Perhaps he'd strained something earlier. The words, "Dumbledore's Army FTW!" glowed green in the dim light of the hallway. She squinted, wondering if the initials spelled "for the win" or "fight the world" or one of many other definitions she'd heard. Just last week, she'd glanced overAstoria's shoulder at the new Teen Witch Weekly, where Sunshine Sue had written "I got new body piercings, girls, FTW!" Peony was still confused. Maybe it simply meant "ouch".

.

.

.


	3. Chapter 3

_._

_._

_._

_._

_Peony drifted slowly through the void, half of her weightless, the other half struggling with… she couldn't see what had a hold of her legs. Panic rose within her as she writhed in the blackness, trying to break free. Her arms flung about and brushed up against something stone-like… a wall. Suddenly, there was a flash of green in the distance, and then another. Peony saw a pulse of dancing lights far away, and as they got closer she could make out shapes._

_Large, animated letters…_

_Green and glowing…_

_Then she was running. The two Gryffindor boys' faces appeared out of nowhere right behind her, pleading – crying out as the phonetic foes closed in and trampled them into the blackness…_

… _and Peony ran on…_

.

* * *

.

"Michael is so handsome!" Astoria proclaimed at breakfast the next morning, while the other Slytherins snickered over pumpkin juice.

"Your father is a flatulent pig!"

"And so very smart," Astoria continued, ignoring the outburst down the table from where she and Peony were sitting. "Think of how infectiously cute our children will be!" She batted her eyelashes at the object of her affections who sat obliviously at the Ravenclaw table. Peony managed a wan smile as she speared a thin ring of sliced pineapple from a passing fruit tray and daintily placed it on her plate.

A couple of first-year Slytherins sitting next to the Great Hall doors made rude noises with their hands in their armpits, having not yet mastered any verbal assaults. Ah well, Peony sighed to herself. Becoming a true and proper Slytherin didn't happen overnight.

Astoria squealed in delight as Peony's finch gobbled up the crumbs in her hand. She was the only fifth year Slytherin left at Hogwarts, if they didn't count Myrna (which no one really did). Peony had taken Astoria under her proverbial wing and moved her into the sixth year dormitory. As expected, Astoria filled the extra bed in the corner quite nicely, bringing a long string of disappointing placements to an end and allowing Peony and the other sixth year girls to finally put that nasty incident with the shears behind them like it had never happened at all.

At the other end of the table, the older Slytherins huddled around Pansy, laughing and snickering away as she hung all over Draco, who was single-handedly trying to down his breakfast with civility. He seemed much more interested in his food than his girlfriend.

Pansy cackled gleefully and pointed her finger at Peony. "You smell like a sack of rotting potatoes."

Peony's fork skidded over her plate. "Excuse me?"

Astoria nudged her gently. "Go on, it's your turn."

Peony didn't need much inspiration to think up something to throw at her sister, (her spoon, the half-empty goblet of pumpkin juice, and a poppy seed muffin were all well within her reach) but she wasn't in the mood. After last night's disturbing nightmare, she made a mental note to ask Headmaster Snape for one of his restful sleeping droughts. Peony swallowed a yawn with a bit of pineapple. At this rate, she'd never keep up with her vigorous Triathlon training program.

Astoria nudged her again.

"Oh, alright," Peony sighed. Slytherins didn't share their personal problems with their housemates. That's what private journals were for. "Ahem. She's nothing but a two-toed sloth in a three-toed sloth forest… "

She stared back at the blank looks from her housemates. "Anyone with brains would know that a self-respecting three-toed sloth would know better than to show up with only two toes…" Clearly, they had missed the point of her cerebral insult. "…because you're missing a toe…"

Perhaps she should try a plebeian approach: "You're a soft pear – too spotted for me to even consider touching you…" She stifled a sob at the mere mention of pears, bringing up unwanted memories of finding Squiggles in the kitchen, and waved her hand to pass on the rest of her turn. Blaise eagerly cut in with blaring physical humor, this time aimed at Goyle and his "extra-special magical parts". Goyle laughed along, enjoying the game too much to feel slighted. The way those boys acted, it could have been considered a compliment.

After the clamor died away, Peony studiously prepared herself for the anticipated pop-quiz in Advanced Charms. Then someone said the name "Carrows" and Peony lost her place in her notes. She shuddered at the thought of what had happened to Neville and wondered who the next victim had been.

The Hogwarts rumor mill ground on and pretty soon the entire hall was discussing how Seamus Finnigan had heard loud sobbing and a gurgling sound from the sixth year Gryffindor dormitory. Ginny Weasley (Prefect-In-Training) confirmed that the two boys that Peony had seen from last night had been sent to the hospital wing earlier that morning to be treated for shock.

Peony listened closer, wanting to know what had happened. The last time she'd seen the Gryffindor rule breakers, they'd looked scared enough. (Technically, she'd last seen them in a dream, where they'd gotten trampled by a glowing green alphabet parade, but she was pretty sure that didn't count.) When she listened closer, the word she dared not think, the one word she never wanted to hear drifted out of the whispers around her.

"…dead…"

Peony gasped and shot a look at Draco, who was busily minding his own eggs, now that Pansy had let his other arm free to discuss the finer points of airbrushed pedicures with the Greengrass sisters. Draco didn't look like the sort of bloke who'd snitch on his fellow classmates, but right now she couldn't be sure. Peony glanced nervously around the hall and finally spotted Luna Lovegood at the Ravenclaw table, as shocked as the rest of the students. Had she been wrong to allow Luna to let the boys go with a warning?

A proper Slytherin would have done things differently, she thought to herself. She mulled over the night before, how she'd wanted to march straight up to the Gryffindor Tower and demand an explanation. They'd promised her that they would go to bed... She'd have felt better if she'd confronted them, but then everyone would know that they'd lied to her. So, instead of dealing with the potential embarrassment, she plastered a smile on her face and tried to forget all about it.

All of a sudden Peony had a strangely intense craving for tea cakes.

.

* * *

.

Terrence stared at the charmed graffiti, wondering where to notate "glowing green letters" in his "Investigate A Crime Scene" checklist. The groundskeeper, Filch, stood to the side and tapped the end of his mop against the floor.

"Defiled the walls again," the old man muttered, giving the mop a shake. "Headmaster Snape's had to brew me more of this cleaning concoction, so hurry it up. The fifth floor loo's clogged and the gears in the clock tower froze up. I told 'em that Dementors roaming around was a bad idea. 'Make 'em shovel manure to keep 'em busy' I said, but no. Now they get bored and start sucking on things in the rafters. Lost two messenger owls last week."

The moment that Terrence stepped back from his investigating, Filch's potion-infused mop squelched onto the wall. The horrible stench prevented him from doing anything else in that hallway, so he quickly moved on. The detective was already riding the nearest floating stairwell when he heard the groundskeeper bellow in shock as a bolt of lightning came out of the graffiti and struck the handle.

Filch's mutterings about a longer pole echoed through the empty hall as Terrence mulled over the facts. He'd tried his best to appease the elves ("Can I get a witness with this pumpkin tart?"). He'd questioned the Carrows ("We take murder very seriously at the Ministry…"), submitted his preliminary findings and his recommendations for student safety to the Headmaster (There had been two murders already. Three, if Headmaster Snape would bother counting the house elf), and poured every ounce of his energy into the investigation since he set foot in the castle.

All he had was a few glossy pictures with notes on the back and a new corn on his big toe from running about the castle in tight fitting shoes. He'd witnessed other detectives in his department come to "obvious conclusions" and declared similar incidents "accidents". But he knew from his father that a good detective wouldn't close a case out of convenience if his gut told him otherwise; he'd sift through the facts over and over to see if he missed anything. He'd find a culprit and bring whoever-it-was to justice (as much justice as a Ministry that supported a Dark Lord could give, in any case). And so that's what Terrence set out to do.

The kitchen looked ordinary and death-free until he waved his wand and chanted "_Vocatio Visionem_". An empty case of Butterbeer appeared by the fireplace and a ghostly likeness of a sobbing Winky coalesced next to it. Everything else that had been cleaned up also reappeared in exactly the same position as he'd found it on the first night, including an image of the dead elf on the floor in a puddle. Terrence didn't want to end up like his father, with a load of theories and no proof, but he knew murder when he saw it.

Suddenly the kitchen door opened and a girl in school robes came into view. Terrence hastily reversed the charm, hiding the disturbing details from the apparent stream of students who passed through after hours).

Then he recognized Peony's perfect hair and shiny Prefect badge. She had on an I'm-dressed-impeccably-but-trying-not-to-look-too-pretty-otherwise-I'd-blind-you-with-my-sheer-brilliance outfit. But even with her unassuming perfection, her eyes looked sad and unfocused.

Terrence cleared his throat so that he wouldn't startle the girl too badly. "What are you doing here?"

The bird on her shoulder let out a frightfully irritating peep and Peony cocked her head to the side. "I'm here for tea cakes."

Terrence hadn't told anyone that he had made the house elves leave the kitchens for the night. "I'm sorry, but the elves won't be back until morning." Winky had been loathe to vacate the stool at the fireplace, but he'd bribed her away with a case of Firewhisky and hadn't heard from her since.

Peony blinked, finally seeing the empty kitchen for the first time. "That's alright." She hesitated for two ticks and then said, "I'll make them myself."

Terrence nodded, assuming that she knew what she was doing. She was such a lovely girl, he was sure she'd keep whatever she saw to herself. She'd discovered the crime scene after all, he reasoned. He pulled out his notes, reapplied the charm and got to work.

As he went through his checklist, he couldn't help stealing glances at her from across the room. Peony opened cabinets and pulled out ingredients – pickled onions, sugar cubes, a loaf of French bread and a roll of spell-o-tape. And a bowl. Terrence had never made English tea cakes, but he was pretty sure that wasn't how it was done. He watched as Peony stood before the strange assortment of ingredients and stared at them for some minutes without moving at all.

The detective remembered his Nonna's kitchen – she'd made all kinds of sweet Italian treats, but not once had she used pickled onions or spell-o-tape. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Terrence asked her.

"Umm…"

Terrence immediately felt sorry for the girl who had finally dropped the charade of having it all together. "May I see your recipe?"

Peony sucked in a breath. "My what?"

"The recipe for the tea cakes… you have one, don't you?"

"Yes, of course I do." She fished around in her pockets and the detective noticed the green and silver coloring of her school uniform. He'd taken the time to study the house culture at Hogwarts. A bit of deception from a Slytherin was to be expected.

"I don't know anything about tea cakes, but I can make cookies. Would you like to try that instead?"

"Yes, please." Peony looked relieved and Terrence was more than happy to oblige. He smiled at Peony warmly as he replaced the spell-o-tape with almond paste, and traded the pickled onions for a small jar of pine nuts.

"I just love rules," Peony told him. "I'm so glad there are people like you to make sure they are followed."

"I quite enjoy order myself. But sometimes it gets in the way of more important things," he said.

"Like what?"

"Well," Terrence considered. "Sometimes the people making the rules forget about things like 'just cause' and 'basic human decency'."

"Oh," Peony said and fell silent.

After adjusting the rest of the ingredients and a quick primer on basic cookie dough assembly, they were soon measuring and mixing. Terrence showed her how to shape the pignolis the way his grandmother had. He was impressed with how quickly Peony caught on and traded smiles with her as they exchanged baking sheets. She seemed to have relaxed in his company. "I understand Squiggles was a good friend to you. Do you know if anyone had a reason to hurt her?" he asked innocently.

"Well," Peony hesitated. Terrence inwardly cringed, because he'd read that when people hesitated, it meant that they were hiding something. "She mentioned something about the new teachers, the Carrows, but I reported it straight away."

Terrence popped the baking sheets into the oven and waited patiently for her to continue.

"I told the Headmaster. Squiggles said the Carrows were bad, but she never told me why. And then…" Peony faltered.

This was definitely a bad sign. As Terrence prepared to remove his personal bias from the situation and get his suspicions up, a single, perfectly tear-shaped tear slid from one of Peony's beautifully two-toned eyes. It glistened down her cheek and as the droplet parted from the delicate point of her chin, Terrence felt like he was watching a diamond fall from the sky.

He shook out the tea towel, Scourgified it and handed it to Peony, sighing as she dabbed her eyes. Obviously, she had nothing to do with what had happened in the kitchen with Squiggles, because she was crying, for goodness' sake. She was obviously too distraught to be a proper suspect.

"You are so very kind," she told him. "I don't understand why Squiggles had to die. And then those poor boys too. They are dead, aren't they?"

Terrence could not lie to her. "Yes. I'm sorry."

Peony nodded and continued in a forlorn tone. "She was supposed to bring me tea cakes that night, and I was going to check on her and…" Peony gazed over at the crime scene that Terrence had left exposed. "Oh my."

Terrence fumbled with his wand. "Sorry. I shouldn't have left that up." He began reversing the spell.

"There is that jam thing. I don't understand that either."

Terrence paused, mid wand-swipe. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Peony sniffed, "Squiggles always used peach marmalade. It's my favorite. Why would she have used raspberry jam?"

"I don't know," he said.

Terrence removed the unsettling scene as Peony sniffled into the tea towel again. He regretted that he had asked her so many upsetting questions, but everything was worth it when she bit into a freshly baked cookie. "These are so delicious!" she exclaimed, her face beaming in absolute adoration as the tea towel landed on the floor.

Terrence chewed thoughtfully. The girl had the emotional stability of a giant blood-sucking gnat, but he still found her irredeemably adorable. "Curfew was an hour ago. Would you like me to accompany you back to your Common Room?"

Peony's eyes widened, like a baby deer. "Oh, look at the time! I have to go. Thank you so much for the…"

"Recipe," he prompted. "For the pignolis." He arranged a platter of pignolis for Peony to take with her for later, thinking she'd need them to help her get over her terrible loss. His Nonna had said they were the perfect comfort food.

She nodded. "Recipe. Anyway, I have Prefect rounds and then I must knit birdhouse cozies before bed. The castle gets drafty in the wintertime." Terrence watched her rush out the door, her school robe flowing gracefully behind her. When she was gone, Terrence looked down at his checklist and decided that it needed some revision. Below "used various methods of deduction", he penciled in "made cookies with a beautiful girl who noticed raspberry jam".

Check.

.

* * *

.

Advanced Arithmancy wasn't Peony's best subject, but Professor Vector had always assured her that she could handle the material. The professor adored Peony, and now doubly so because of her newly discovered heritage – "Bridget Wenlock, the famous Arithmancer discovered the magical properties of the number seven!" Vector had gushed for half the class over Peony's good fortune, being the seventh generation of the seventh son of Wenlock. "Oh my word! You are the most fortunate student I have ever had the privilege of laying my eyes on!" She even got Peony to sign her name on a piece of parchment– seven times – for research that Professor Vector was conducting on a "most exciting" theory. Peony had gladly obliged, happy to help the professor.

In the weeks that followed, Peony tried extra hard to listen to her natural abilities, and open her numerical pathways as Professor Vector advised. But there was something distracting her today. All through class, Peony felt eyes on her. It couldn't be Draco, she reasoned, not after she'd explained about her devotion to Roderick. She doubled her efforts to concentrate on the class, thinking that maybe he wasn't actually staring at her. Peony looked around and spotted another girl in the front row. She was the one that always hung out at all the Slytherin Quidditch practices and wore platform sandals on the weekends. Draco would go for a girl like that. When he wasn't with her sister, of course.

After class was over, Peony lingered, triple checking her figures against the professor's equations on the board. Her ink blotter was inky and her normally brilliant script had smudges at the edges.

"Oh Squiggles!" she lamented, missing her little friend. Then a form-fitted black robe blocked her view of the board and she sat up straighter. "Could you please move so I can finish my notes?" she said in her mostly-polite-and-not-yet-irritated voice.

"You've been finished for ages, Peony." Draco stared down at her. Apparently, he hadn't been watching the Quidditch groupie after all.

Peony had wondered why Draco had chosen Advanced Arithmancy in the first place; the only figures he seemed interested in walked around in short skirts after classes, but he did tend to avoid girls when they were at their crankiest – at least he was putting the probability and factoring skills to some use.

Peony, on the other hand, chose the hardest classes because otherwise, her life would have no challenges whatsoever. She packed away her notes and decided the best action would be to ignore Draco Malfoy, but as she stood from her seat, she found that he hadn't moved.

"I need you." He leaned closer and Peony's stomach rumbled silently.

"What for?" Peony asked, because it was more civil than the get-out-of-my-way line she might have otherwise used.

"Come with me to Hogsmeade this Saturday," he told her. "There's a gathering at Madame Puddifoot's."

Peony was first struck by how well-cut Draco's robe was, and then her demeanor soured because the Head Boy was blatantly asking her to break the school rules. And then she thought about Pansy's possessive looks at the breakfast table that day.

"Don't you think you should be asking my sister?" She tried not to think about holding hands and sugar quills.

Draco snorted. "Your sister's talents won't be of much use to me at this sort of gathering. I need a girl who can manage to land a charm further away than the end of her nose."

Peony opened her mouth to ask Draco whether he was going to tell Pansy about this little tryst and what his true intentions were towards her sister, but she already knew the answers were "No" and "more of the same, if I can get it", so instead, she managed a weak, "Why me?"

"Because you're perfect." Draco leaned closer, his hot breath on her arm.

Peony coughed politely and the proper lady inside of her wanted to shove him aside. But the lure of Madame Puddifoot's beckoned. She wondered if they'd serve tea cakes there after dark.

The cookies from the nice detective had sated her for a little while, but now they were gone. Draco was much too close to her and the cravings had returned in full force. There was just something so enticing about the scent of his cologne. If she were any other girl, she might have leaned in closer to get a whiff of him. Peony put a hand up to her salivating mouth. She was half mortified that she was having these thoughts about Draco, when Roderick was clearly the better man.

And then, as if by magic, Draco said the words that Peony had been dying to hear all year.

"Roderick will be there."

"You saw Roderick?" Peony half-jumped out of her skin with excitement. So it had been him the other week in the hallway!

Draco gave her a half-cocked smile. "He wants to see you, Peony. He told me so."

Peony knew she should say no, but somewhere deep inside, the curious, desperate side of her was flattered beyond belief and was already plotting how to make it happen, rules or no rules. She would do anything to see her beloved Roderick. It had been far too long since she'd talked to him, held hands with him, shared a sugar quill… she turned away from Draco so he wouldn't see a small drip of saliva escape from her lips. She had to fix this.

"I'll think about it," she mumbled into her palm, and brushed past him to her next class.

.

.

.

* * *

A/N: First of all, thank you to everyone who has read and left a comment so far. You guys rock! Secondly, I'm sorry! I don't know why these chapters keep getting longer. I will try to keep them snappy, but sometimes the words get in the way.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4 **

.

.

Finished with cleaning the finch cage, Peony gazed at the colorful birds that perched and peeped along the canopy rods of her bed. They sounded so happy that she decided to let them stretch their wings a while longer while she sorted through her matched silken underwear sets.

"Don't do it."

Peony sighed, tri-folding her baby blue panties, careful to tuck the corners of the little bows into neat creases. Menial chores usually helped to clear her head, but even after three sets of underwear, she couldn't stop thinking about Draco's invitation.

"He's going to soil you, Peony, and you know it."

"It's just tea cakes," she replied, reaching for the matching push-up with the embroidered edelweiss straps.

"Your sister will poison your pumpkin juice when she finds out."

Peony looked up at the stuffed lamb on her pillow. "You said the other day that she'd never hurt me."

"Not without good reason," the lamb said. Or rather it _intoned_ from somewhere within. Its embroidered mouth didn't move, yet it went on as if all stuffed lambs were magically infused with sound Slytherin logic by loving-yet-strangely-distant-and-cold stepmothers. "Poaching boyfriends is not proper. Breaking the rules gets you punished." If Lambie could have looked indignant, it would have – the glass eyes only shimmered in the candlelight.

"I'm not interested in Draco," Peony told her, trying to look innocent and unaffected. But then she sighed and faced her little lamb with resignation. "I don't want to break the rules Lambie, but he said that Roderick will be there and I haven't seen him or talked to him in such a long time. We are perfect for each other! We're both dedicated to community service. We both adore French cuisine and spending long afternoons in the park playing chess under the cherry trees, and he holds my hand so very tenderly."

Peony sighed again. "I need him, Lambie. If I could only see him, I just know he'd soothe my anxiety over the death of our friend Squiggles and those poor boys. He'd tell me all about our bright future together. And then we might even have time to eat sugar quills and stare lovingly into each other's eyes."

The bed was so quiet that she stopped stacking her underthings to look over at Lambie, who had slipped a little and was now lying all wonky-like across her covers.

"I haven't touched a sugar quill since last summer," she continued, ignoring her stuffed friend's almost cross-eyed stare. "I've been faithful and true and I know in my heart that he loves me."

She sighed once more, this time with great longing. "I simply want to know why he hasn't answered my letters."

Peony had tried to forget the sting of disappointment at Roderick's silence. So many people had let her down: her father, the babysitter she had when she was seven, the elderly lady that lived down the street, her best friend when she was ten – all of them left her, never spoke to her again, or died… Peony hadn't allowed herself to be sad or angry, but that hadn't stopped the nightmares afterwards. The only thing that calmed her was writing in her dream journal.

Lambie spoke again. "You should be patient. I'm sure he's very busy following orders. And with so much work to do, even you haven't kept your promise to write to him every day, have you?"

"Well, no, but…" The last letter still sat on her desk where she'd left it after seeing Roderick at Hogwarts.

"Oh no!" Peony frantically stuffed the rest of her laundry into her dresser and ran to her writing desk. She'd been hurt… no, no… _confused_ when he'd disappeared without a word. Her quill scratched furiously onto a new piece of parchment; "Dearest Roderick, please forgive me. I didn't know where to send this letter after I saw you at the castle..." She continued for a page and a half, composing a lovely poetic apology at the end. Then she sealed it up neatly.

"What are you planning to do?" The lamb's eyes sparkled dangerously.

"I have no choice. I have to go to Hogsmeade with Draco. I have to be sure he gets this," she told herself.

"Nonsense. You do not need to break rules over a silly letter."

Peony knew Lambie's warnings were for her own good, but her Slytherin sensibilities told her that at times like this, personal agendas were more important than following rules. "I'm going to personally deliver the letters to Roderick and tell him I'm sorry that I stopped writing. He'll understand. He loves me."

She changed into her pink and green little lamb print pajamas and found Lambie waiting on her pillow, as usual.

"Brush your teeth and hair?"

Peony nodded and kissed every one of her little finches on the head before securing the cage. She patted her friend on the head. "Yes, Lambie. I completed all of my assignments and took my vitamins too."

Lambie always helped her follow the rules. But today, for the first time, Lambie's advice didn't make sense. Instead of talking her through a logical solution, the lamb seemed to be asking her to ignore her promise to Roderick entirely, which was completely unconscionable.

Suddenly, an image popped into her head of the little lamb being pitched out the highest window of the Gryffindor Tower. In her mind, she watched poor Lambie plummet to its morally ambiguous death. Peony turned the stuffed animal around and stared into its beady eyes, squeezing Lambie tighter as she thought hard about how its fluff would be scattered in the wind and blown to all four corners of the Forbidden Forest.

Then she blinked disbelievingly, unsure of where those horrible thoughts had come from. She let up on the stuffing, reminding herself that she was better than her half-sister Pansy. (Pansy's stuffed bear hadn't made it past second year, having had an unfortunate run-in with Hermione Granger's Kneazle when her sister had "accidentally" snuck it into the Gryffindor Common Room with a necklace made of lemon grass and catnip.)

Peony tucked Lambie under her chin. Her lamb kept her on the path of questionable righteousness, even if the road map was inconveniently packaged.

"I love you, Peony," the lamb said at last.

"Love you too, Lambie." Peony reached across the bed, took her sleeping draught and blew out her candle.

.

.

Saturday evening, Peony dressed in an I'm-sneaking-out-of-the-castle-so-no-one-will-notice-me-but-once-I'm-in-Puddifoot's-no-one-will-be-able-to-take-their-eyes-off-me ensemble. She didn't have a finch for that, so she left them all in their cage for the night, tucked the undelivered letters into her pocket and hurried up the stairs, two at a time at the appointed hour. She snuck past Filch, who was wrestling with a new batch of cursed graffiti.

Draco stood anxiously by the statue, which was odd because the Head Boy should look solid and self-assured, and oh so very hot… but the only thing Draco had going for him tonight was his hair, and even that seemed a little out of sorts this evening.

"Run out of coconut conditioner?"

Draco ran a hand through his hair. "How'd you know?"

Peony magically lit the end of her wand and led the way through the tunnel. She might have wasted an opportunity for an easy insult at breakfast the next morning, but a reunion with Roderick was enough to quell errant thoughts of Draco. She'd taken the time to study the tunnels in and out of Hogwarts , having reviewed the Prefect handbooks, "How to Catch Trouble Makers For Good" and "Sneaky Spots To Hide From Unsuspecting First Years".

Peony ran her hands along the thick stone walls, thinking that the professors were probably going to close this passage too (All the other secret passages had been closed off. It was only a matter of time), and then the Slytherins would have to find something else to amuse themselves with other than pulling the Hogsmeade Alarms and watching the old barman run out of the Hog's Head Inn screaming "darned kids" at the top of his lungs (Peony had heard it was quite entertaining).

They reached the end and pushed open the cellar door into the back room of Madame Puddifoot's. Someone had shoved the tables against the walls, cramming the rolling carts full of silver cutlery into the corners. Peony ignored the makeshift banner supporting the Dark Lord that had been strung up along the rafters, choosing instead to admire the shelves of lovely tea cups.

With all the laundry folding and ink blotter cleaning she'd been doing (after Squiggles' untimely demise), Peony had been thinking about a lot of things. The Dark Lord had most of Wizarding Britain by the throat and didn't take kindly to disagreement with his plans. Voicing disagreeable opinions was another valued Slytherin trait that hadn't been reconciled with the new rules – or at least how they were being interpreted by the Carrows.

As long as the meeting didn't start off with "Hail the Dark Lord", she'd probably be alright. More importantly, she had to find a way to convince Roderick that she was still wholly devoted in spite of the missing letters. She'd never broken a promise before now. She'd never snuck out of the castle or attended a secret meeting behind the backs of the faculty either. Peony didn't like this new string of firsts she'd stumbled into, but she was here now. She might as well make the most of it.

She pushed Draco over to the group of robed figures along the back walls. "I'm here," she announced. "Where is Roderick?"

Draco shrugged. "Have a seat." He shoved an empty chair at her. Peony sat down and picked up a stray menu that had been tossed aside, hoping it would distract her from her impatience.

Theodore Nott cleared his throat and banged his wand against one of the tables to get everyone's attention. "We all know why we are here."

Peony raised her hand and Draco cleared his throat next to her. "Better clear it up for the new folks," he muttered to Nott.

"Right. We're sick of the goodie two shoes that call themselves Dumbledore's Army. Though the Unforgivables are right wicked, we never practice simple hexes in school anymore. I've been reading up." Murmurs of surprise spread around the room like a vat of melted wax. "It's no big deal," Nott countered. "Anyway, if we're going to be ready for the Dark Lord, what we need is a Broad Arsenal of Offensive Techniques. That means that all our charms and hexes need a good workout. And we need a name."

"Excuse me," Peony interrupted. "What about the Students Against Dumbledore's Army?"

"Yeah, that sounds brilliant." Someone tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. Nott addressed the group again with a broad smile. "Everyone grab a partner. One of you shoots and the other one blocks."

Draco gripped Peony's arm and she squealed in pain. "She's with me!" he shouted to the room. "I'm on Peony's team!" Then he hissed in her ear, "You were made for this. I'll be right behind you!"

Before Peony could protest, Nott shouted, "He's here! Our fearless leader of, umm… the SADA, I guess." He made a grand flourish with his arms. "I present to you, Roderick Spinks."

Peony nearly fell out of her chair at the sight of him. When his eyes landed on her, she expected a similar expression of jubilance, but he seemed to look straight through her. Then she noticed the familiar looking box under his arm and a bright smile appeared on her face. She almost rose out of her seat and rushed across the room and…

Roderick addressed the group. "There's no time like the present, so let's get to it. Anyone who makes it to me unharmed gets a prize. Double points if you take out your partner! On my mark… one, two, three!"

Peony jumped as the room exploded and the curio box to her right was blasted into tiny shards of wood. She was jolted out of her seat by a hex that hit a few inches away from her ear, crashing into a display of tiny, collectable spoons. The plaster crumbled above her. She glanced over at Roderick in the far corner, well out of the way of the flying spells. Peony gathered herself together and blasted her way through the fray to her one and only true love, who was holding the box of sugar quills over his head like a coveted trophy. He must have been saving up for all the times they had been apart!

Peony's heart pounded as she deflected a stray curse that threatened her perfect curls and sent a stack of tatted doilies up in flames. When she finally, triumphantly turned around to present her letters to him and receive her well-earned token of his love and affection, she gasped as he handed the last sugar quill to a girl she didn't recognize.

In fact, as she maneuvered through the smoking velvet draperies and piles of smashed serving dishes, she noticed that almost everyone in the room had a sugar quill, besides herself (and Draco, who had holed up under a table on the opposite side of the room and didn't look like he was coming out any time soon). Roderick tossed the empty box to the side, along with Peony's fragile and now bleeding ego.

Disbelief boiled within her as the letters dropped to the floor. It was _their_ special treat all summer long, and here he was, giving out sugar quills to every other girl like it was ordinary candy. He'd _promised_ that he would save his sugar quills for her, just her, and only her, and he'd given away an entire box to everyone else.

"Oh, hello Peony," he said, pretending to see her for the first time.

Something snapped and the ceiling cracked above them. "Hello?" Peony's voice rose over the din. "That's all you have to say to me?" The last of her frayed composure broke. She gripped him and shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"Where are my sugar quills?!"

"Umm," Roderick looked like maybe he had forgotten something important.

The realization hit Peony so hard that she nearly toppled into a stack of crisply-folded floral tablecloths. He didn't love her. Not one bit.

Peony struck at him with her delicate fists. "You gave away all of my sugar quills! Don't I mean anything to you at all?" Peony felt tears welling up and let out a frustrated scream. Slytherins weren't supposed to cry.

"What are you talking about?" Roderick asked, trying to pry her hands off of him. "We haven't spoken in months."

"What?" Peony let him go in shock. "Didn't you get my letters?"

"The psychotic series of iambic pentameter that professed your undying love and how we were never going to be apart after you graduated? Yeah, I got those. I thought they were a joke from your meddling sister."

The crazed contraction of Peony's pupils told him otherwise.

"What was I supposed to think?" Roderick scrambled to put some distance between them. "We held hands and ate sugar quills for three whole months. Draco bragged all summer about what he did with your sister and I never even got a kiss out of you. What kind of girl leads a bloke on like that?"

Peony sniffed. "I thought you were being chivalrous and noble."

Roderick stared at her like she had two heads. "I thought you just wanted to be friends."

The oversized crystal chandelier tilted dangerously above them. Peony was about to tell Roderick that she'd never felt so wonderful until she'd been with him. Actually, she'd never felt any different than she normally did when she was with Roderick, but it had been wonderful in her head… it _could_ be wonderful if they tried again, she just knew it!

"I'm sorry," she pleaded as he backed away. "Please forgive me. I was a little upset. I… I can live without the sugar quills. We were so happy together, Roderick. Don't you remember? The chess? The community service?"

Nott ran past them, holding a cucumber serving tray (solid silver, not sterling) over his head as a makeshift shield to protect himself. It might have fit him better if his head had been more cucumber shaped, but both Peony and Roderick admired the ingenuity.

Then Roderick turned back to her. "Sorry Peony, but I've moved on." The girl who had taken Peony's sugar quill slid up to him and he put his arm around her. "This is Rhonda. We're getting married."

The chandelier creaked low and loud and everyone scooted out of the way as it came crashing down in the middle of the wrecked tea shop. Roderick and _that girl_ had scrambled to safety and Peony rolled under the remains of a mahogany china cabinet, ignoring the dark red stain on the Persian rug that would probably never come clean.

When the red and green blasts resumed, breaking windows and leaving cracks in the outer walls, Peony forgot all about reconciling with Roderick, the sugar quills, any of it. She got on her hands and knees and crawled through the debris and discarded sugar quill wrappers to what looked like an exit. She looked both ways before darting out of there and down the hill, wanting to get herself and her singed curls as far away from that disaster as she possibly could.

.

.

Peony stumbled through Hogsmeade, blinded by her tears and the screaming wind, searching for someplace safe and warm and sugar quill-free. The rational part of her knew that she should turn around, but Peony wasn't ready to re-enter Madame Puddifoot's and stumble over the pieces of her broken heart to get back to Hogwarts.

She strained against the locked doors of the Three Broomsticks and then slumped against them. A well of panic rose up within her as the wind whipped all around.

Then she saw a dim light in the distance and stumbled towards it, hoping against all hope that someone would let her inside. But when she got to what looked like an old broken-down shack, the sign alone made her back up a few paces. It was the head of a wild boar, all the gore still dripping out. The light behind the curtains flickered as someone inside moved about.

Before she could decide whether to turn back or try her luck inside, a heavy gust blew her against the door. And then she felt cold. Really, really incredibly cold. And sad. And despairing. Ghostly forms closed in around her. She let out a scream as the door behind her opened and a hand grabbed and yanked her inside.

"Are ya daft?" A crusty old man with a ratty gray beard let go of her collar and stuck his wand out the door. "Expecto Patronum, ya beastly lump o' pillow stuffing!" A burst of light exploded from his wand. Peony had to shield her eyes from the momentary afterglow through the dusty window.

As the Dementor retreated into the swirling darkness, Peony gave him a wide-eyed stare. "I didn't know that spell worked with insults," she said, impressed and appalled at the same time. "Don't you need to use happy thoughts?"

The old man smirked as he bolted up the door. "A few years back, this brawny woman, came 'round several times a week. She had the foulest mouth when we, ahh…" He seemed lost in his brief reverie and sighed. "Good memories." Then his scowl reappeared. "Look. I'm not gonna explain myself to ya. Yer the one sneaking around out where ya don't belong."

He sloshed a frothy mug in front of her and soon Peony was crying into a Butterbeer about Roderick, about the lost tea cake opportunity, and all the senseless death. On top of it all, she'd committed several serious infringements that were punishable by expulsion.

"I'm a rule breaker!" she sobbed.

"There, there missy. I've been running this pub fer a long time." He patted her hand. "I know what it's like ta be utterly disappointed by those ya love."

Peony sipped her Butterbeer, now a little more salty from the tears, but still sweet. She was starting to tremble a little.

"Tea cakes," she said weakly, chasing away the memory of Roderick's fingers entwining tightly around hers for hours… and now his arm hung around another girl. In public even! A chipped plate clattered in front of her. The round, dried out pastries looked more like day-old biscuits, but she was desperate.

"Peach marmalade," she whispered. People had _seen_ her with Roderick and _assumed_ things about them last summer, and Peony had believed it all. Now, he was going around with someone else, someone who probably let him hold her hand and… and other things too. Her head was pounding and if she hadn't been sitting down, Peony was sure she'd topple over.

A jelly jar slid under her nose, followed by a dented butter knife. "So ya came from Puddifoot's, did ya? Ya follow the Dark Lord?" He eyed her suspiciously.

"No, I followed Draco down the hidden tunnel," Peony told him, scraping a dribble of marmalade off her chin with her fingers. It was too late for daintiness.

"I always told my brother that the castle needed more than one secret passage down to here. A real secret, mind ya. Not one that all the kids use ta break curfew with. That's right pointless if ya ask me. Especially now that things are getting dicey. But he never listened. What with the Death Eaters taking over, yer all doomed I reckon." The old man sighed. "We had our differences, me and Albus. But now and then I miss the old fart."

"You are the late Professor Dumbledore's brother? You look nothing at all like him," Peony said, digging into another pastry.

The old man scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Why that's the nicest thing anybody's ever said to me," he told her. "Call me Aberforth. How's about a little proposition?"

The old man continued on about "what I want" and "what you want" and how they could benefit each other. Peony half-listened as she fortified herself with a stale, crumbly façade of marmalade and biscuits. She'd been so perfect for so long and now her rules had failed her. Her dreams of happily ever after had been shattered. _She_ was broken and her life would never be the same.

Peony gulped down her last bite and reached for another tea cake. "What do you want me to do?"

.

.


End file.
